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Sunday, April 26, 2015

ApologetLag

A guest post by Y. Bloch
Apologetics is hard. Arguing defensively for one's faith is always a
dicey proposition, compounded by the fact that one is always fighting
last generation's battle.
This was very clear to me growing up in
80s America in an Orthodox Jewish community. In 1985, we finally had an
answer for the society of 1955. Now it's 2015, and we've come up with
responses as fresh as 1985. (Sorry, as a child of the 80s, I can only
think of time in Back to the Future settings.)

Hat, beard, peyos, jacket--1885 was such a mechayeh!

Nowhere
is this more apparent than in the way contemporary halakhic Judaism
grapples with homosexuality. Whenever religious Jews try to talk about
gay issues, they end up sounding like recent arrivals from another era. Haredi
(ultra-Orthodox) parties make no bones about it: they won't even put a
female on their lists, as part of their commitment to 18th-century
ideals.
But it's particularly irksome when you encounter some of
the opinions offered by members of Bayit Yehudi, the Jewish Home Party,
ostensibly representing the dati (translation: let's just go
with the barely serviceable "Modern Orthodox") perspective. Party Leader
Naftali Bennett, a moderate, explained that same-sex marriage is as kosher as a cheeseburger, while Rabbi Eli Ben Dahan, once (and future?) Deputy Minister of Religious Affairs called it "a recipe for the destruction of the Jewish people."
Yehudit Shilat, director of the Takana Forum dedicated to helping
victims of sexual abuse, has stated that since most homosexuals choose
to be that way, "advancing the gay-lesbian agenda legislatively" leads to "collective suicide."
Bezalel Smotrich reported that he now regrets organizing the Beast
Parade in 2006 to compete with the Jerusalem Pride Parade, but he's
still a self-identified "proud homophobe" (see, proud is gay-eh in Hebrew; get it?) who declared ("normal," in modern Hebrew, is a synonym for "sane" or "free of mental illness"):

Any
person can decide he doesn't want to live a normal life. That's his
right. But they don’t have the right — just because they are
uncomfortable being abnormal — to demand of us all to redefine the norm
and claim "there is no such thing as normal."

While
Shilat did not get into Knesset and the Jewish Home lost 1/3 of its
seats, the others are now proudly serving. If two of Likud's current
members move on and Amir Ohana, number 32 on the Likud list, takes his seat, I wonder how the gay Tel Aviv lawyer will be welcomed by his party's "natural partners" in the Jewish Home.
For
a man who ran on a platform of "No apologies," Bennett surely seemed
apologetic when presenting his offer to the LGBT community, "Rights,
yes. Recognition, no." He talked about how much he loves all Jews, even
the gay ones, and how he served alongside them, but "Look, I've got a kipa on my head! Formalistic Judaism does not recognize same sex-marriage."
I
might note that formalistic Judaism does not recognize weddings
performed in Cyprus either, but I digress. What does formalistic Judaism
actually say? And since it looks like the Jewish Home will, almost
against its will, accept the Education Ministry, what will they teach?
It
all starts with that perplexing pair of verses in Leviticus, 18:22 and
20:13, which we read yesterday in Israel and will be read by Jews abroad
this week, prohibiting and penalizing "bedding a male the beddings of a
woman." What exactly that means on the literal level is unclear, as I wrote two years ago
(Rabbeinu Hananel seems to have suggested the same thing a thousand
years ago), but halakhically it definitely forbids anal sex between men.
But what if they're not men?

They must both be stoned if they are both adults, as it states: "Do not bed a man," whether he is the active or passive partner.
If
a minor of nine years and a day or more is involved, the man who enters
into relations or has the minor enter into relations with him should be
stoned and the minor is not liable.
If the male [minor] was less than nine years old, they are both free of liability.
(Maimonides, Laws of Forbidden Relations 1:14)

Here
is where the apologeticists' heads explode. You see, they love to
explain how the severe penalties for sex between men is really about
pedophilia, launching into lusty descriptions of Greek culture. But the
fact is that by Torah law, a man having consensual sex with an adult is
liable to the death penalty, but one raping an eight-year-old gets off
scot-free. This is explicitly laid out in the Talmud, Sanhedrin 54b.
Maimonides himself seems bothered by this, so he concludes:

It
is, however, appropriate for the court to subject the adult to lashing
for rebellious conduct for homosexual relations although his companion
was less than nine years old.

Well, that's something. Except of course that the Hinukh, a comprehensive listing of the 613 commandments based on Maimonides' count, thinks another party should be subject to lashing:

If
one was a minor below thirteen years and a day, but above nine years
and a day, the adult is stoned whether he was the active or passive
partner, while the minor is biblically exempt but lashed by rabbinical
law.

So, Naftali, I wear a kipa too. And if I
lived in a Jewish state that followed this ruling, I would do
everything in my power to burn it to the ground. I guess the question is
when you're willing to apply the rule promulgated in the last line of
the first tractate of the Mishna, Berachot (9:5):

And it says, “It is time to act for God, they have nullified your Torah.” (Psalms 119:126) Rabbi Nathan says, “'They nullified your Torah' – because it is time to act for God.”

The best way to avoid apologetics is to have nothing to apologize for in the first place.

If it relates to Jews, Judaism, holidays, Midrash,Torah, halacha or anything similar, I probably have a post on it. And if I have a post on it, I probably have a good comment thread with great reader-provided information, too.

Try a search and see for yourself. If you can't find what you're looking for ask me.

Quotes

רֹאשׁ דְּבָרְךָ אֱמֶת קוֹרֵא מֵרֹאשׁ דּוֹר וָדוֹר עַם דּוֹרֶשְׁךָ דְּרֹשׁ
Your chief word is "truth"; You've called it out since the beginning. In each generation people interpret You [for themselves] and find [their own] meaning.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd. -Flannery O'Connor

“When in the afterglow of religious insight I can see a way that is good for all humans as it is for me—I will know it is His way.” - R. Abraham Joshua Heschel

I don't accept at all the quite popular argument that the press is responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. The monarchy's responsible for the monarchy's recent troubles. To blame the press is the old thing of blaming the messenger for the message. -Anthony Holden

Said behind my back

"...he's trying to show that there are other facets to Orthodox Judaism. That we don't all think one way and vote one way. And he's occasionally entertaining when he's not being mean-spirited" [PsychoToddler]"

"He's witty. He's funny. He appreciates the ridiculous in life, and has no qualms about telling you when he thinks that you're being a moron" [Cara]

" I'm pretty sure [DovBear] is a really great guy who just wants to be able to ask questions and talk about things without the fear of someone claiming he's off the derech or on his way there." [Chaviva]